


Do not stand at my grave and weep (I am not there, I do not sleep)

by AugmentedHuman



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Molly has Ammesia, if canon won't bring Molly back then gosh darn it I'll do it myself, the title of the doc is mollymauk 2: electric boogaloo which makes me laugh, this was not meant to be this long and things got wildly out of hand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15529797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugmentedHuman/pseuds/AugmentedHuman
Summary: Mollymauk Tealeaf died.He then proceeded to scare the hell out of a 10 year old Kenku when he came back.An amnesiac Molly is found crawling out of his grave by a party of anti-heroes and assholes. It causes all sorts of drama.





	Do not stand at my grave and weep (I am not there, I do not sleep)

**Author's Note:**

> So I had this idea while watching Caleb, Beau and Nott say goodbye to Molly and crying. It has since been two weeks and I haven't recovered so I'm taking canon and I'm fixing it.
> 
> All the original characters in this are actually all of my pc's, who I love with all my heart. There's more info on them in the end notes if you want to get very memey descriptions of them!

There were days where Flynnan really, really hated what his life had somehow managed to become. Today was definitely one of them. They were literally heading to somewhere called Shady Creek Run.

Now, Flynnan liked to think he was a good person, despite the extremely dubious party of characters he had ended up travelling with, which was hopefully why Arvoreen hadn't totally given up on him yet. However, despite all of this, he knew, deep in his soul, that some form of bullshit was going to go down in their next destination. After all, it was literally called _Shady_ Creek Run.

Where better for a party of chaotic assholes to find some form of chaos and destruction to cause, which Flynnan would doubtlessly be dragged into?

He sighed deeply as he stared out of the back of the cart, watching the soft snowfall outside as he mused on the disaster his life had somehow become. He really should have let those racist _(speciesist?)_ cultists sacrifice him to their God, it would have made his life so much easier.

As he continued looking out the back of the cart, one hand buried in the black fur of Marigold, who was currently sprawled out across the floor of the cart, Flynnan watched the setting sun start to sink over the horizon.

Behind him, Ara was teaching Ren to say something that was beyond inappropriate for a 10 year old to know, and he was was very pointedly ignoring it. He would, however, have to have a word with Ren and tell them to never say that, _ever,_ especially as they were now repeating it with no small amount of enthusiasm, Ara’s voice coming clearly from their mouth.

The sky was darkening when a shout came from Amari, riding up front and guiding the horses.

“Hey, assholes! We need to stop soon, the horses won't ride in the dark.” She yelled, deep voice easily traveling back to the six sat in the back of the cart.

“Why not?” Ara yelled, her high voice heavily accented as she tilted her head slightly in thought.

“Because horses don't have fucking darkvision Ara! They can't see in the dark!” Amari yelled back, and there was a beat of silence before Ara stood up, crossed to the open back of the cart, and pulled her body half onto the roof of the cart, apparently so she could question Amari over the logistics of horses and darkvision. The conversation continued for a few moments, before Flynnan heard Amari’s short temper break as she yelled at Are.

“Ara! I don't know! Now stop asking or I am going to come back there, and bury my axe in your fucking skull!” Ara dropped back into the cart, giggling to herself as she tossed her thick white hair over one shoulder, and Flynnan could have sworn he saw the holy symbol at her belt shine softly as she did so.

Five minutes later, the cart slowed to a halt, and Flynnan heard Amari jump down from her perch at the front. Taking initiative, Flynnan did the same and jumped out the back of the cart, landing softly in the hard, near frozen dirt, the thin layer of snow crunching under his boots. He took a moment to stretch out quickly, it had been a long day, even if he had only been sitting in a cart, before heading to see if Amari needed help with the horses. He found her having already unhitched one of their two horses, a dappled grey mare, and was leading it towards a nearby tree stump to graze for the night.

“Need a hand?” He called, and Amari turned to look over their shoulder, fixing Flynnan in her silver gaze.

“Flynnan, mate, you're my favourite person here but you are three feet tall, I'm pretty sure a horse could crush you underneath its hoof.” She said, tying the mare’s lead to the stump and turning fully to face him. Flynnan looked at the Amari, to the horse and then back again.

“Yeah, that's fair.” He conceded to Amari, who grinned as she unhitched the remaining horse, a pure black gelding, and walked it to the same tree stump as before. He left Amari to the horses, months of travel with the human-adjacent girl had left him aware that she was much more comfortable in their presence than in his, and headed back around the cart.

“Hey, Flynn!” A voice called, and he turned to see Matari, holding a blue swath of fabric that he easily recognised as the canopy for their makeshift camp. “You up to helping me pitch? Faen’s useless.” They said, earning themself a glare from the dark-haired maybe-human next to them.

“Fuck you, Mat.” Faen said, no real bite behind the words, and promptly grinned when Matari stuck their tongue out in Faen’s direction.

“Yeah, I don’t mind. Not a problem, kid.” He said, heading over to the pair, the scales on his armour clanking slightly as he did so.

Him and Matari spent a good 10 minutes hitching the blue cloth to the back of the cart, leaving them with a sloping canopy that both gave them all some privacy and would hopefully keep some of the heat inside.

Faen, very helpfully, sat on top of the cart and hurled some remarkably creative insults at the pair as they worked, a slight grin on their face as they did so. They had clearly been spending too much time with Ara, although a couple of the more scathing ones clearly came straight from the teenagers own mouth, the little prick.

After the canopy was hitched to the cart, and Faen had jumped down to help light the fire underneath it, sending long flickering shadows across the blue fabric and snowy ground. Flynnan got maybe five minutes of peace, sitting in the warmth of the fire, before Alexa popped her head inside, all her sharp teeth on display in a wide grin as she addressed Faen.

“Hey, Fae, come see what me and Ara found!” She said, before vanishing again, her red tail hitting the fabric of the canopy as she left. Faen was off after her like a shot, and Flynnan sighed deeply.

The last time Ara and Alexa had “found" something, it had blown up and flooded the whole place with necrotic energy, Faen hadn't spoken to them all for three days and Ren had almost died.  Flynnan really didn't have the energy to deal with whatever bullshit this was going to be. Grabbing his mace from inside of the cart, Flynnan followed after Faen and Alexa, and hoped that whatever Alexa had found wouldn't try to murder them.

For once, Flynnan got what he wanted, as what Alexa and Ara had stumbled on was a red coat on a stick, the empty sleeves fluttering slightly in the soft breeze. It was a unsettling scene, and Faen looked physically uncomfortable as they looked at it, more so than Flynnan felt.

“Fae? What's up?” Alexa asked, clearly disappointed that she hadn't gotten the reaction she had wanted from Faen.  

“I don't like this place.” Faen muttered, quiet as their nails dug into their palms.

“Why not?” Flynnan prompted. For their flaws, Faen was one of the most reliably normal members of the party, and if something was setting off their fight or flight instincts, it would probably be better to know about it before some shit went down and they all ended up dead.

“This whole place, it feels like death, like pain and bloodshed and loss, and it's stronger here, and I _don't like it here!"_ They said, taking a step away from the coat, nails digging into their palms even harder as they spoke. “Something really bad happened here, and it's tainted the whole place. It's-" Faen cut themself off and shook their head, short black curls falling into their face. “This isn't a good place to be.” They finished, and Flynnan could see blood on their nails, five crescent moon cuts on both hands.

“Well, that doesn't sound good.” Alexa commented, making what was apparently the biggest understatement ever.

“Faen, why would you not tell us this before?” Flynnan asked, and Faen shrugged.

“Most places feel like death, I didn't think this was any different. How was I supposed to know that there was a really bad place literally just across the fucking road?” They said. “I mean, none of you noticed the grave either.” They tacked on, burying their hands in their pockets. It was a fair point, Flynnan conceded.

“I don't think we can move on tonight, but we can leave early tomorrow, as soon as the sun rises, if it makes you so uncomfortable.” Flynnan said, and a look of relief spread over Faen’s face.

“You're too good for us, Flynn" They said, grinning softly, and Flynnan grinned back.

“Nah, if I was too good for you, I’d’ve let you all die a long time ago.” He said, and Faen snorted slightly, before turning and walking away from the grave. They had taken maybe five steps when they stopped, turned on their heel and called back.

“Let's stay away from the creepy death grave while we're here, yeah?” They said, and Ara and Alexa both walked after them in what was apparently an agreement with Faen's request.

Flynnan waited for a few seconds, before reaching out with his mind, latching onto Faen’s energy, dark blues and blacks swirling around the teenager. The holy symbol at his hip pulsed with silver-green light as he cast Cure Minor Wounds on them, healing the small cuts on each hand. There was a beat as Faen stared at their hands, before they called backwards “

Thanks Flynn!”

“Thank me by not fucking up your hands again, this is the fourth time!” He called back, following after the trio.

“Hey, I never asked you to heal me when I did it, leave my unhealthy habits alone!” Faen said, dropping back ever so slightly to walk next to Flynnan.

“Faen,” Flynnan said, looking up at Faen, “If I left your unhealthy habits alone, we'd never talk.” He said.

“That's hurtful, that is.” Faen said, flashing sharp teeth in a grin before quickly softening it to hide their teeth. "I'm a perfectly innocent child and you attack me like this, how could you do this to me Flynnan?” They said, and Alexa snorted a laugh from two paces ahead.

“Fae, you robbed three people blind in the last town, innocent isn't a word that applies to you!” She said, not looking back at the pair. Faen made a wordless sound of outrage, before yelling back at Alexa.

“Says the fugitive!” They called, but they were still smiling in a way that clearly told Flynnan that they didn't mind the ribbing from Alexa.

The conversation quickly dissolved into the pair spitting insults at each other, both smiling as they did so. Flynnan left them to it, Alexa was far too good at drawing people into one of her petty play-fights, and Flynnan wasn't about to get involved in one, not after the last time, when he had accidentally taught a few of the party how to swear fluently in Halfling. It hadn't embarrassing, per se, but Ren could now swear in 3 languages because of him, which made him a little bit of a hypocrite after getting on Ara’s case about it.

When he got back to camp, Matari was cooking something that smells better than anything in the middle of nowhere has any right too, and something primal in Flynnan’s brain told him to steal the food and run, but Flynnan was more evolved than than that, so he ignored it and waited for Matari to finish cooking.

He then proceeded to eat three servings of it, which turned out to be stew, full of what tasted like rabbit meat and some of their dried vegetables. Sue him, he was a halfling, they had big appetites.

After the meal wound down and most of them had finished eating, except for Ren, who was feeding Marigold scraps of rabbit from their own bowl, Matari was already half asleep, leaning on Amari’s shoulder with heavy eyes, the ribbon wrapped around their horns unravelling slightly.

“I think we ought to sort the watch rota and call it a night.” Amari said, shifting their shoulder slightly to give Matari better support.

“I'll take first! I need to write a letter to my friend!” Ara chimed in, and Amari nodded.

“I'll take one as well.” Faen said with a shrug. “I won't sleep much here anyway, I may as well be productive with my time and make sure we don't all get murdered in our sleep.” They added.

“Ren will take watch.” Ren said, not looking up from Marigold, who had given up begging for scraps from what was now an empty bowl, and had instead flopped down on Ren’s feet.

“I'll take last.” Flynnan offered, “We'll be moving off early so we shouldn't need more than four people.” He said, and Amari nodded, smiled lightly and pulled Matari to their feet.

“Well, night then assholes.” She said, and guided Matari to start setting up their bedrolls for the night.

Flynnan, by merit of being short enough to actually lie down inside the cart, got to sleep under an actual roof, and boosted himself inside the cart, setting up his bedroll on one of the benches and storing his mace and some of his heavier armour pieces underneath it, alongside what looked like Amari’s sword.

Climbing into his makeshift bed, Flynnan watched as Ren appeared in the cart, set up their own bed, and then whistled sharply for Marigold, the black dog curling up on the floor next to them. More tired than he had originally thought, Flynnan found himself dropping off fast, and before he knew it, he was asleep.

His dreams were confusing, as dreams so often tended to be when you were connected to any sort of deity.

If he was honest, he was starting to see the point of Amari’s dream journal.

Tonight, he saw flashes of a fight, a man with reddish hair, the bars of a cage freezing over, a red eye snapping open, a glaive stabbing down into something, and twisting. There was something else, a flash of purple, something Arvoreen clearly wanted him to see, and if he pushed himself, he could just about make out a -

Flynnan was abruptly jolted out of his sleep by the sound of Ren, screaming bloody murder from somewhere outside the cart.

Acting almost entirely on instinct, he grabbed his mace from under the bench and vaulted out of the cart, intending on immediately fighting whatever was making Ren scream like that.

There were rapid footsteps behind him: Ara, the purple-red glow of her hellish rebuke swirling around her fingers, and Amari, white light bleeding into the night from her fingers and axe as she stepped out of the blue canopy and into the darkness.

“Ren!” Ara yelled, and Flynnan could hear the concern in her voice as she called out for her friend.

An avian call came back, high and sharp, and Flynnan just about caught a glimpse of black feathers on the other side of the road.

“Over there!” Flynnan pointed out to the other two, and was promptly beaten there by both of the girls, which was just a little bit rude. They found Ren just off of the road, staring wide eyed at the grave they had all agreed to avoid.

“Ren, what the hell is going-" Amari started, before cutting herself off.

“Oh my god” She muttered softly, the slight edge of her mostly hidden accent fully audible, and it was then that Flynnan followed both Ren and Amari’s gaze to the grave, where a tiefling was half-crouched in the snow, shivering hard. He was covered in dirt, and a glance at the grave next to him confirmed that the grave had been disturbed, apparently from the inside.

“What the fuck.” Ara said from next to him, accent heavy from what was presumably shock, and Flynnan figured this was probably the first time they had actually had the same reaction to something.

The tiefling stared back at them with wide eyes, terrified, and it was then that Flynnan remembered that he, Ara and Amari were all currently heavily armed, and would probably look very threatening to the tiefling. He quickly dropped his mace into the snow, and batted at Ara’s hand until she dropped the spell. Amari was better at context clues, and slung her axe back onto her back without needing prompting, the white light fading from her hand.

“Came from the grave.” Ren said, hiding ever so slightly behind Ara, sending frightened glances to the tiefling every few seconds, clearly spooked by what they’d seen. Flynnan didn't totally blame them.

“You can go back to the cart, if you want.” Ara said softly, crouching down to Ren’s level, and the kid aggressively shook their head.  

“Want to help!” They said, gesturing a feathered arm towards the tiefling, who was still watching them with wide, scared eyes.

He was grubby, skin grey in the dim light, but clearly covered in dirt. His hair was wild, loose around his shoulders, tangled around short, curling horns, and his eyes seemed pure black in the dark, although Flynnan was sure they were similar to Matari’s, or Alexa’s, both of whom had solid silver eyes. Whatever had gone on here, this kid had clearly been through some form of hell, Flynnan realised as he watched the tiefling, and that made it his duty to help. Hopefully the others felt the same way.

“Hello, friend,” Flynnan said, keeping his voice soft and calm, and the tiefling’s scared gaze narrowed in on him. “Are you hurt?” He asked next, focusing on something he could fix. His magic would let him fix anything that might be physically wrong with the tiefling, but he couldn't fix what he didn't know existed.

The tiefling just stared back at him, eyes wide and without comprehension, and Flynnan sighed softly. This was going to be difficult. It was Amari that stepped forward next to him, and with a softness Flynnan didn’t know she possessed, she crouched down in the snow, catching the tiefling’s eyes.

“Do you speak common?” She asked, and then kept talking when she got no response.  “It’s okay if you don’t, I didn’t speak common until I was about 12. We have other tieflings in our party, if you only speak Infernal?” She said, and still got no response from the tiefling.

“Ren, go and get Matari please.” Flynnan told the young kenku, and Ren was gone in seconds, dashing across the road and back to the camp. They were back within two minutes, dragging a still mostly asleep Matari behind them.

“What’s going on?” Matari asked through a yawn, one hand attempting to untangle their hair from their horns as Marigold followed at their heels.

“Our friend here doesn’t appear to speak common. Can you see if he speaks infernal?” Flynnan asked, and watched as a mix of confusion and pity spread across Matari’s features as they spotted the tiefling.

“I don’t speak infernal all that well, but I can try.” Matari offered with a soft shrug, their tail curling around their wrist as they crouched down. What followed was a string of speech that Flynnan couldn’t follow, and judging by the look of both Amari and Ara, they also didn’t speak infernal.

Matari stood back after a few minutes and shook their head.

“Nothing. Either he doesn't want to reply, or he doesn't speak infernal. I don’t know which, I’m sorry “ They said.

“Is fine, Mat. You did your best.” Ara said. “Did he really not understand anything we have said to him?” She asked, and the tiefling looked up at her. Ara caught his gaze, and cocked her head slightly, white hair falling slightly into her face.

“Do you understand us?” She asked carefully, and the tiefling nodded jerkily.

Ara broke into a huge grin as the tiefling responded to her, pushing her hair out of her eyes as she started to talk rapidly. “That's great! Do not worry about talking, talking can come later! Ren doesn't talk much either. Well, not unless you give them something fun to say!” Ara said, and Ren finally stepped out from behind Ara.

“Fuck!” They chirped in agreement to Ara, and Flynnan internally regretted the day Ara had even been inflicted upon both himself and Ren, who now knew all the swear words Ara had been able to come up with.

“Let's not overwhelm our friend for now, Ara.” He said. “My name is Flynnan, friend. The loud one is Ara, the bird is Ren, the tall one is Amari and your fellow tiefling is Matari.” He introduced, pointing to each member of the party in turn. “

No relation.” Matari and Amari choursed in unison, the memory of an old joke bringing a soft smile to both of their faces.

Ren stepped further away from Ara, their short height making them almost eye-level with the crouching tiefling, and cocked their head ever so slightly, regarding the tiefling critically as they watched him.

“Cold?” They asked after a short moment, and the tiefling nodded again. Ren nodded back. “Have fire, by cart. Come with?” They asked, tone light despite the concern Flynnan could clearly see in their black eyes. The tiefling watched the group for a long, silent moment, before nodding to Ren, and pulling himself up into a standing position, stumbling slightly as he got his legs underneath him.

The first thing Flynnan noticed was that the tiefling was tall, standing only a few inches shorter than Amari, meaning he completely towered over both himself and Ren, who stood at 3"4 and 4"1 respectively (and they were only a little touchy about it.) T

hat didn't stop Ren from immediately stepping next to the tiefling, grabbing his hand, and leading him back towards towards the camp. The tiefling froze at the sudden contact, stiffening slightly, but still allowed himself to be lead back across the dark road, Ren’s dark figure almost invisible at his side, Ara following closely behind.

Flynnan watched them as they did, Amari and Matari’s presence still clear at his side.

“What happened to him?” Matari said, their eyes still watching the tiefling even as they dipped out of the range of Flynnan’s darkvision.

“I've got no fucking clue.” Amari said, “But I know it was bad.” She added, rubbing a hand over the long scar down her arm.

“That does about sum it up.” Flynnan agreed, before looking at the grave, red coat and stick knocked onto the ground from the tiefling working to free themself.

“Ren said he came from the grave. Buried alive, maybe?” Flynnan mused out loud, but Amari shook her head with a frown.

“We've been here hours, he'd be dead if he'd been alive down there all that time.” She said, poking at the disturbed dirt with one foot.

“So maybe he wasn't alive?” Matari said, shrugging as they attempted to arrange strands of hair around their horns to keep it out of their eyes, ultimately failing and giving up on it.

“What, he just came back to life on his own? Or maybe a ritual was done somewhere else?” Amari asked, and Matari shrugged with a sigh.

“Maybe? I don't know shit about bringing back the dead, if I'm totally honest.” They said, and both pairs of eyes turned to Flynnan as the pair seemed to remember that Flynnan was, in fact, a cleric.

“Spontaneous revival is impossible, but the other option is actually a pretty good shout, not all rituals actually need the body. He could’ve been brought back from anywhere.”  Flynnan said, after a moment where he quickly attempted to recall everything both Arvoreen and his wife had said about reviving people, considering he personally had no fucking clue how that nonsense worked.

“Could we tell, if that was the case?” Amari said, and Flynnan shrugged.

“I've only been doing this for a year, I’ve no idea. I could ask Arvoreen, though that's not a guarantee of an answer, and we don't know if that's what happened to our tiefling friend.” Flynnan said, running a hand through his loose hair.

“Well, why don't we try just asking him what happened?” Matari asked, “If that gets us nowhere, you can ask Arvoreen, and Ara can ask that god of hers, and we can go from there.” They added, and Amari grinned slightly.

“If it's a god willing to be associated with Ara, do we really want to know what they have to say?” She asked, and Matari swatted at the taller girl’s arm, though they were smiling as they did so.

“Play nice, Mar.” They warned, and Amari shrugged slightly, heading off in the direction of the cart. Matari grinned as she left, whistled sharply for Marigold, who came blurring out of the woods in a streak of black and followed after her.

Left alone, Flynnan picked his mace up from the ground and turned to follow them both back, before the image of the red coat flashed in his mind.

If this grave had belonged to the tiefling, which clearly it had, then it stood to reason that the coat had too. He'd probably want it back, or at the very least it could help to keep him warm. Flynnan retrieved the coat from the ground, gently dusted snow and dirt off of the intricate golden embroidery and folded it in his arms, before heading back in the direction of the cart.

**Author's Note:**

> Molly is having a bad time, but he's got some people to watch his back. 
> 
> I'm horrible at editing so if you spot any mistakes please tell me so I can fix them!! Also I live for feedback so please make this small gay writer happy and give them some! 
> 
> Character descriptions:  
> Faen: Dhampyr Rogue, they/them, thief with issues, chaotic neutral  
> Amari: Aasimar Fighter, she/her, trying her damn best, three seconds away from strangling a man, armed to the teeth, chaotic good  
> Matari: Tiefling Barbarian, they/them, so damn tired, could probably snap you in half but will talk you to death instead, chaotic good  
> Marigold: A dog, the best boy, the party's therapy dog  
> Ara: Drow Warlock, she/her, thinks everything is funny, bad at emotions, borderline chaotic neutral/chaotic evil depending on how many people she's killed that week  
> Ren: Kenku Rogue, they/them, literally 10 years old, all these idiots are a bad influence but they were already a kleptomaniac so go off ig, chaotic neutral  
> Alexa: Tiefling Bard, she/her, over-dramatic as all hell, “alexa play despacito.” *aggressive lute playing* chaotic neutral  
> Flynnan: Lightfoot Halfling Cleric of Arvoreen, halfling god of protection, vigilance and war, he/him: so, so tired, did not ask for this but damn if he won't keep these assholes alive anyway, neutral good
> 
>  
> 
> Message me at Grgwshngturnt on tumblr if you want actual in depth info on any of them and their tragic backstories instead of bad jokey descriptions


End file.
